Collaborative Sensing Using Sensors of Uncoordinated Mobility

Abstract

Wireless sensor networks are useful for monitoring physical parameters and detecting objects or substances in an area. Most ongoing research consider the use of stationary sensors or controlled mobile sensors, which incur substantial equipment costs and coordination efforts. Alternatively, this paper considers using uncoordinated mobile nodes, who is not directed for any specific sensing activity. Each node independently observes a cross section of the field along its own path. The limited observation can be extended via information exchange among nodes coming across each other. For this model, the inherently noisy mobile measurements, incomplete individual observations, different sensing objectives, and collaboration policies must be addressed. The paper proposes a design framework for uncoordinated mobile sensing and one sensing approach based on profile estimation for target detection, field estimation, and edge detection. With simulations, we study its strengths and tradeoffs with stationary and controlled mobile approaches.

The work reported here is supported in part by DARPA and Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Material Command, USAF, under agreement number F30602-00-2-0555, and by U.S. Army Research grant DAAD19-01-1-0504 under a subrecipient agreement S01-24 from the Pennsylvania State University. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the views of funding agencies.